


Wingman

by bananacosmicgirl



Series: The Changed verse [1]
Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Friendship, Gen, Supernatural Elements, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27506005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananacosmicgirl/pseuds/bananacosmicgirl
Summary: The world goes crazy and Barney becomes Ted's wingman. Literally.
Series: The Changed verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010238
Kudos: 10





	Wingman

It started with an itch.

He didn’t realize until Ted slapped his hand away.

“Stop scratching at your back, dude,” Ted told him, sounding irritated. “You look like you have flies or something.”

Barney gave a half-glare. “Flies of awesome, maybe.”

But it didn’t stop, even though he sat on his hands most of the night, and whenever he wasn’t sitting on his hands, he was drinking. That night, he fell into bed, drunk and alone – and his shoulders were still itching.

His body screamed for food when he woke up, and he was vaguely aware of ordering food. Pizza, hamburgers, Chinese – anything they delivered to the door. Each time the doorbell rang, Barney stumbled to the door, handed the delivery guy some cash and grabbed the cartoons of food. He didn’t even cross the living room to stand in the kitchen to eat; he sank down to the floor and inhaled the food.

Bumps started forming above his shoulder blades. Some part of Barney knew that should be a cause for worry, but his brain seemed muddled far beyond the normal hangover headaches. He couldn’t think straight. He called his secretary to get her to switch all of his appointments until later and tell her he wouldn’t be in for that day, but that was all. When his phone kept ringing and beeping with messages from his friends, he finally turned it off and crept into bed, falling into a deep sleep.

He woke up to someone repeating his name over and over.

“Barney! Barney, come on. Barney.”

There were light taps on his cheeks, and he opened a bleary eye to gaze up. Lily’s face swam into view.

“Oh thank god,” she said. “He’s not dead. He’s awake. Not dead.”

Barney heard shuffling, and the others’ faces appeared. Ted, Marshall, and Robin all crowded around Lily.

“Dead? Why’d I be dead? Guys? Wha’ ‘re you doin’ ‘ere?” Barney mumbled. Someone had filled his brain with cotton.

“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Robin muttered.

“Maybe he would,” Lily said. “He’s the one growing wings.”

Barney frowned. He was pretty sure that what Lily had just said made absolutely no sense. Perhaps he was still dreaming. It was possible – he’d had semi-realistic dreams before.

“Wings,” Barney said, chuckling. “My brain comes up with the weirdest stuff.”

They all frowned above him, but Ted was the one who spoke. “It’s not a dream, dude. You’re growing wings.”

Barney rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. And what’s next, the Easter Bunny’s real? And Santa really delivers the Christmas presents?”

He sat up – or tried to, anyway. The weight of his body was off, as though his center of gravity had shifted.

Lily’s hands came around him. “Marshall, help me, please?”

“I don’t need help,” Barney muttered. Marshall ignored him, his muscular arms joining Lily’s, helping him sit up.

“If you promise not to faint or anything girly like that, we’ll let you check in the mirror,” Lily said.

“Why would I—”

Barney broke off mid-sentence, staring. Across the room, in the large floor-to-ceiling mirror he’d put in pretty much as soon as he moved into the apartment, he caught his own reflection.

With extras.

A skeletal structure spread from his back, all white bones and a few downy feathers.

“What—oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?” said Lily, thrown by the tone of his voice.

“Really, this is the best you could do?” Barney asked. “Drug me up and glue some stupid Halloween dragon wings or something to my back? And pretend to be all shocked and worried? That’s so _lame_.”

“Barney, those are your wings,” Marshall said.

“Yeah, and that thing I said with the Easter Bunny—”

“Oh, for—” Robin came up and took hold of a wing. Barney was sure she had tired of the joke and come to end it – until she pulled on the wing in her hand and he could feel it all the way down his spine. The wing she was pulling was a part of him, and it was the same as it would be if she had pulled his arm or his leg.

“They’re yours,” she said. “Your wings.”

“I—I—”

It wasn’t a dream – the light outside was too piercing, their faces too sharp. And he felt the weight of those things on his back. Those things were stuck to him, like they were a part of him – except they weren’t supposed to be.

Lily was rubbing his back – between the skeletal wings – mumbling soothing words Barney couldn’t make out. Marshall kept him upright; without him, Barney would have fallen down and he wasn’t sure he’d ever have gotten up again.

Wings.

Really?

He’d gone to bed as Barney and he woke up… what? An angel?

“What are you guys doing here?” he asked instead, again, weakly.

He saw the glances exchanged between the four. Robin rolled her eyes again, as though she thought all of this was stupid. Barney could only agree.

“Lily had a vision,” Marshall said at last, and even though he was the one who believed in supernatural stuff, he still stumbled over the words.

Barney frowned. “A _vision_?”

“I’ve been getting them for a while,” Lily said. “I didn’t realize what they were. But then I started seeing—well, I saw Ted and this girl I’d never met going out and when I went down to the bar, Ted was sitting there, thinking about whether to ask her out—”

“Not sure that’s a vision, so much as a safe bet,” Barney muttered.

Lily sent him a quick glare before continuing. “I saw myself reading the news about a shooting and I got up and read the paper the next day and there was the shooting.”

“And she knew I’d be spilling my coffee all over my new dress.” Robin didn’t sound happy about it. “She didn’t have the courtesy to warn me.”

“And now you saw me?” Barney asked.

Lily nods. “In bed, with the wings, looking all—deathly pale. When was the last time you ate?”

“I—I ate before I fell asleep.”

“And when was that?” Ted asked. “Those cartons of Chinese out there don’t smell fresh.”

Barney frowned. “What day is it? When did you guys last see me?”

“On Thursday,” Marshall said.

“Well—”

“Thursday last week,” Marshall added. “It’s Saturday. We haven’t seen you in nine days.”

Barney shut up at that. He could remember ordering food and stuffing himself with it – and he had some vague memory of falling into bed. Had he slept for eight days?

His stomach growled. Glancing over at himself in the mirror again – ignoring the bones protruding from his back – his reflection horrified him. He was as pale as the white bed sheets, and his face looked gaunt. He’d only been sleeping, but it looked like he’d lost at least twenty pounds in that time.

“You need to eat,” Lily said. “Ted, can you make some soup? I don’t think he should eat heavier stuff just yet.”

“Shouldn’t we get him to a hospital?” Marshall asked.

“Marshmallow, you’ve seen what the hospitals are like. We’ll help him better than they can right now.”

Barney looked up at them. “What’s wrong with the hospital?”

Lily’s face was grim. “Let’s just say that you and I aren’t the only ones changing.”

Barney stared at his reflection some more. “Are others growing wings?”

“No—well, I guess some are,” Lily said. “It’s just—people are changing. A lot.”

“You said that already,” Barney said. “Changing _how_?”

“There are centaurs walking the streets.” Robin made a face as though she couldn’t believe she was saying this stuff. “There are people who can move stuff with their minds. I saw someone turning water into ice. There are telepaths. People’ve turned into mermaids, elves—heck, anything you can come up with from some kiddie storybook, and some you couldn’t.”

If it hadn’t been for the bones sticking out of his shoulders, Barney would’ve picked that moment for some dude to jump out and yell that he was on candid camera. As it was, he gave Robin a slack-jawed expression.

“Yeah,” Robin said. “That was my reaction.”

“So—you guys,” Barney said. “What are you guys?”

“Nothing, yet, except Lily,” Marshall said. 

“But you’ll get something?”

He glanced at Lily at that moment and noted the look that briefly crossed her face. She knew something – and with the pre-cognitive powers she had developed, that wasn’t much of a surprise – but she wasn’t telling them. It didn’t matter; Lily was notoriously bad at keeping secrets. Barney would find out.

“We don’t know yet,” Marshall said. “No one knows. It’s all new to everyone. The government is trying to keep up and secure national secrets and stuff from all these new powers, and the hospitals are filled with people who’ve gotten sick from the change.”

“Apparently, growing all additional body parts and developing brand new senses is bad for you.” Robin’s voice was dry and borderline irritated.

“Soup!” announced Ted, returning to the room with a steaming bowl. “Eat up, as mommy ordered.”

“Are you drunk?” Barney asked, eyebrow raised.

Ted shrugged. “I figured the world – and you guys – needed some goofiness. Everything’s so dark right now.”

“Dark?” Barney said. “The world is filling with fairytale creatures and abilities out of Marvel and the world is _dark_? Really?”

“It’s a madhouse out there,” Robin said, sounding a little softer now. “You’re getting off easy. A couple of thousand have already died, and that’s only around the New York area. The death toll keeps rising. And besides, it’s not just humans that are changing.”

Barney stopped, spoon half-way to his mouth, one word stuck in his head. “Died?”

Lily nodded. “Like Marshall said: the hospitals are filled with sick people. Not everyone makes it.”

Barney swallowed the spoonful of soup, suddenly very grateful for his friends. “Damn.”

He finished his soup, the room quiet around him. Robin was staring out the window, with a faraway expression. Ted was shuffling around, looking a little uncomfortable. Lily and Marshall shared looks, and they didn’t need any kind of new telepathic ability to communicate.

When he finished, Lily took the bowl. “You should rest. The public service announcements have said that people growing new limbs should eat a lot and rest a lot. I’ll wake you up in an hour so you can eat some more.”

“You don’t think these are done?” Barney asked, glancing over his shoulder to look at the wings. They really were stuck to his shoulders. Huh.

“I know they aren’t,” Lily said, smiling. “They’ll be huge with all white feathers when they’re done.”

Barney’s eyes widened. “And I’ll be able to fly?”

“If you can’t, you should totally ask for a refund,” Marshall said.

Lily’s smile was gentle. “You’ll fly.”

Barney’s smile grew wide. “You hear that, Ted? I’m going to up my awesome to awesome squared with these. I’ll _fly_.” He chuckled, a little madly. “I’ll be your wingman _forever_.”

Robin hid a smile behind her hand as the others groaned at him.

Somehow exhausted from eating and talking to his friends – though it was more likely to do with the fact that his body was building two large attachments and that took a lot of energy – Barney laid down and closed his eyes. The last thing he thought before he drifted off into sleep was that he’d no longer be able to sleep on his back if he had wings.


End file.
